


Dead Man's Hands

by startwithsparks



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Blood, Death, Dreams, F/M, Ghost Sex, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:57:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/pseuds/startwithsparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tywin Lannister is dead, but that doesn't mean that Arya has escaped the lion's jaws, nor that she <i>wants</i> to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Man's Hands

Snow swirled dizzily around her, leaving the world in blinding whiteness as she stepped out from under a stone archway and into the expansive lichyard. Mausoleums rose like a tiny city all around her, snow clinging thick to their pitched roofs and craggy walls, obscuring the features of the statues standing like frozen sentinels in their eternal watch. The snow crunched softly under her bare feet as she moved, rising up to her ankles with each step, but she felt no cold - not from the snow under her feet nor the flakes that pelted her pale, bare face and shoulders. The only covering she had was a linen sheet wrapped snug around her body and tucked high under her arms, held by one clenched fist across her chest. The warmth of the braziers, unevenly dispersed among the tombs, should not have been enough to keep the chill from penetrating her skin, but the flames gently licking at the wind seemed to chase away whatever cold tried to find her.

 _I am a wolf_ , she thought, _and wolves don't feel cold_.

She couldn't remember being here before, but somehow she still knew her way through the maze of tombs, the sheet dragging behind her like a train and dusting away her footsteps. There had to be a reason she'd come here, something she was meant to find, and she could _feel_ it like a hand at the back of her neck gently guiding her onward. She was not one to be so easily guided, but this touch felt familiar, and there was no reason to fight it just for the sake of being difficult. So she let it draw her further inward, through each twisting row and past the eroded gazes of lords and knights from ages past. It was there, near the heart of the lichyard, she found what she'd come here for.

He sat on a long bench - a slab of stone in the same dull, dark gray as rest of the castle, across from a pair of slumbering lions. Even in the blur of snowfall, he was impossible to overlook, dressed in the same long black overcoat, with its elegant silver clasps running down the middle, that she had seen before he donned his red and gold armor and rode out of Harrenhal, and the same image of him that always lingered in her memory. His face was more drawn than it once was, and the fierce glimmer in his eyes seemed to have burnt out slightly, but with his hands clasped tightly in his lap, back straight, and head held high he was every bit the regal lion she remembered. No amount of time could ever obscure the memory of Tywin Lannister.

She took another step forward, reaching back to tug the now-damp sheet along with her. She was almost next to him before he finally turned to look at her, that vague smile creeping into his gaze. His mouth never so much as twitched to match the expression, but she'd so rarely torn her gaze away from his long enough to notice that the smile never reached the rest of his face.

"You've grown finally," he said, unclasping his hands and resting them on the edge of the bench.

 _Years will do that_ , she thought, but she merely let a whisper of a smirk touch her lips and shrugged. "You've died... finally."

He laughed, softly with a hint of irony, the same way he used to when she said something that might have got her the back of a hand across her face, at least, were it any lord other than him. The sound was like fire crackling around her, chasing back the dull coldness in her limbs.

"A clever woman's tongue is sharper than even the finest Valyrian steel," he told her, the gold flecks in his eyes glinting as they caught the light of the brazier nearest to him.

It was fortunate that she had her tongue then because dealing with a man like Tywin took far more than a sword, Valyrian steel blade or no. She wet her lips, gone pale and ashy with the cold, and canted her head curiously towards him. "And what of a clever man?" she asked, "is his a tongue fit to duel with as well?"

Tywin's eyes sparkled with an unspoken intrigue, though he pressed his lips into a thin line. "You were always too sharp for you own good."

She offered him a non-committal shrug, reaching back for the end of her sheet again and drawing it up around her body. She could feel the dampness from the snow on the back of her legs now, and the linen dragged heavy behind her; it was simply easier to move with the train tucked neatly around her narrow waist. Tywin pointedly averted his gaze from her bare legs, and that only made it all the better for her. She wanted him to look, too often she thought about they way his gaze had followed her at Harrenhal and wondered what might have happened if he'd survived just a little longer, until she found her way back into the world. She'd already gathered up the scattered pieces she left behind her, he was the only one she hadn't gotten to in time.

"Did you know?" she asked, wandering idly between him and his tomb. She could see her skin of her feet cracking as she walked now, leaving deep red rivers through bluing flesh, but she still felt no pain.

"That I had a wolf-maid serving my table?"

She bristled at word _maid_ , which had always gotten under her skin as much as being called a lady. She had never been a maid, not the way her sister was, but there was no reason to say anything more of it than the cold scowl and rigid jerk of her shoulders could say for her when she glanced back over her shoulder. Instead, she nodded silently at him, digging her toes deeper into the snow around her.

"I knew," he nodded back, "but what harm could come from one little girl? You were better off there than you were being sold to some lord for his loyalty."

It was hard for her to bite back the snort of amusement that answered, and she wound her arms tighter around her middle to keep it at bay. She turned on her heel, scuffing snow with her toes as she moved. "Couldn't stand to see me with anyone else, could you?"

He gave her a knowing smirk and leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees. "What outlaw knight _have_ you aligned yourself with, anyway?" he asked curiously, and she could almost see the lion in him start to pace.

She didn't know what sort of answer he expected from her - she was the daughter of a traitor and couldn't even claim her own name thanks to his dealings and he was dead and couldn't do anything about it no matter who she bound herself to - but that didn't mean there was any way she would give him more reason to act smug. A man who had worn his house colors in Harrenhal now kept her bed warm. Even if he did remember the man's name, which she very much doubted he would, she had no intention of letting him think she picked up her scraps from his yard.

"I'm wed to Him of Many Faces," she finally answered, her lips twisting into a grin of her own.

Tywin was a well-educated man, even he would know the name of the Braavosi god, the god of the Faceless Men, and his smirk faded swiftly from his face, which only left her feeling more victorious. She liked knowing she could still make the color drain from his face that way.

"I never knew you were pious."

"Oh, I am..." she replied. "I prayed every day, constantly, harder than anyone has ever prayed, and god heard my prayers."

"What, if I may be so bold to ask, did you pray for?" he said, the tension in his voice strained and uncertain.

She watched him closely, as unflinching as ever. "Death."

He didn't seem terribly moved by her answer, though maybe it was because he sensed the same thing in her that Jaqen, and the Hound not long after him, had both sensed in her. Gendry knew it was there as well, and it frightened him, but not the old lion. He always knew that his time would tick by before she was a real threat to him. Maybe that was why he was here now, still lingering outside his tomb, waiting for her to see the job complete.

"If it's death you pray for," he said slyly, "might you have been better off wedding the Stranger?"

She smirked at him and shook her head, "What good is having a weapon if you can't use it?"

He laughed again, not as soft this time, and again the warmth tingled across her skin. She wasn't sure she _liked_ it that second time, the way the heat seemed to ripple across her flesh and melt away the ice that had formed on her shroud. But she didn't have time to think about the way the cold leeched from her body, because a moment later he reached towards her, beckoning her in. She stared at his outstretched hand cautiously, unsure why he'd want to draw her in like this. But the first moment's brief hesitation was over in a breath, and she found herself slipping her own cold hand into his, and allowing him to lead her down onto the bench next to him. The compulsion that drew her towards him was no different than the hand that led her through the winding mausoleums and statues of the lichyard, though she'd almost forgotten that's where she was until the ghostly touch urged her forward.

She let him guide her down next to him, leaving barely a breath of room between them as she angled her body towards his. While she'd never been this close to him before, she always wondered what it would be like to feel the weight of such a person next to her. It was heady and overwhelming, and he hadn't even touched her yet. Tywin carefully slid her legs into his lap, then dusted the snow off her toes, and covered her with the black of his own cloak.

"I always thought it would be you," he said softly, reaching out to brush the snowflakes from her short, dark hair.

She found herself leaning into the touch, even if the warmth of his hand threatened to chase her away. As cold as his gaze had always been, his touch felt like it would melt her, as warm as any living man's ever had been. It seemed so strange that, in this place, hers would be ghastly cold flesh and he would be the one to warm her, but she felt suddenly like more of a corpse than him. She twisted away from the touch, and the smirk glint in his eyes again. He reached for her, and again she squirmed from his touch, and each time he was a little less gentle until his arms wound tight around her waist and his hand buried deep in her dark hair. The playful teasing had worked up a flush on her pale cheeks and, as he drew her in, she could feel the warmth radiating off of him as well.

If his hands were warm, his kiss was scorching, holding her lithe frame against his with both hands, commanding her mouth to follow his as he'd commanded her through the lichyard. The hand in her hair slipped down to the back of her neck, while the one at her back came around to carefully untangle the sheet from around her waist. It slipped down easily, draping loose across their laps and giving him a new expanse of skin to drag his hands across.

She'd heard things about Tywin - that he never smiled, that he never so much as looked at another woman after his wife died - but none of those things mattered here. Among the dead, she could always have what she wanted. It may seem that he was in control here, but she knew that he couldn't do anything unless she allowed him to. There was something about that, having control over the great Tywin Lannister, that she loved. But never one to give up anything easily, no matter who it was on the other end, she drew away again and pressed a hand to his chest to keep him at bay.

Leaving the sheet draped where it was, she climbed off and took a few steps back towards his mausoleum. He watched her, gaze drawing slowly up her legs, the slope of her hips, and lingered for a moment at her chest. This time she was the one to hold out her hand to him, and he answered, unclasping his cloak and leaving it on the bench behind him, entangled with her sheet, as he rose. Her hands found the clasps down the front of his overcoat as his found her waist, pressing her back against the door of the mausoleum and pressing down into a kiss. He'd chased her, as she wanted, and the lion deserved a reward from his prey. She tipped her head up as she made quick work of the clasps, then slid her hands in to unlace his tunic. He shrugged out of his clothes, leaving it piled in the snow behind him, until she finally got to his pants and shoved them down around his thighs.

He would have had her up against the mausoleum, but she nudged him away, placing her hand on his shoulder to guide him down into the snow. The pile of clothes he'd shed made a pitiful barrier between him and the ground, and the snow quickly soaked through to his skin, leaving him shivering slightly under her... at least until she climbed on top of him. His hands came instantly to her waist, holding her as she slid down, her thin legs pressed tight against his hips. He barely made a sound as she braced herself against his chest, leaning down over him as she started to move. Even without any sound from him, she could still feel his grip tighten on her waist, the muscles in his chest and thighs flexing under her as he pressed up every time she slid down. She made up for his silence however, her voice ringing off the stone around them, uninhibited and willfully exposed. He made no attempt to quiet or restrain her, just dug his fingers so deep into her flesh that they threatened to leave bruises.

It was everything she wanted it to be, though maybe next time she _would_ let him take her against the door, and she had almost lost herself in the feeling of him buried deep inside her until she felt something warm and wet trickling along the inside of her thighs. She glanced down to find the wound in his gut broken open, bleeding, soaking the snow around them in deep a deep red pool. Tywin seemed completely oblivious to it, though she could see his skin slowly turning ashy. It should have given her pause, but instead she drew her hands down, dragging her fingers through the blood pooling on his stomach, and rolled her hips harder, deeper, until it was more than just the warm wetness of blood between her legs.

The tremor of her body woke her, heart racing hard in her chest and body throbbing. Arya twist onto her side under the sheets and heavy furs and dragged her fingers down between her legs. Her hips jerked towards her fingers and another small shudder worked its way up her spine, leaving her pressing her knees tightly together. The fire in her room had smoldered out long ago, but the first fingers of dawn cast light through the dirty window of the inn where she'd spent her night. She had a job today, another gift to bestow, and no time to consider why a long-dead Lannister kept creeping into her dreams.

 _I always thought it would be you_ , she remembered, and tugged the furs up over her head to give herself just a few more moments of darkness.


End file.
